The music was AC/DC. The attire was black with gold trim with KATIE emblazoned across her waist. Eddie Hearn required some bling and her brother, Lee, chose the heavy metal walk up music. The team wanted drama and impact but she preferred sackcloth and ashes.
Katie Taylor listens on blankly. The music she didn't know, the trim was too much for her prosaic tastes. The important difference between then and now is that the music is loud and she wears the gold braid.
Taylor understands this brave new world she has entered at 30-years-old is different.
After grabbing hold of the impossible amateur dream, her conformity to the set piece and the world of sales pitch, market recognition, faux drama and the stirring sound of Thunderstruck is where she has pitched her tent.
There is maybe hesitancy but no objection. Her decision to turn professional has allowed others to take some control. Those compromises seem within her scope of acceptance.
“I didn’t know the song. I just said ‘yeah’ it’s a real crowd pleaser. Did you like that, the bit of bling,” she says.
English promoter Eddie Hearn, one of the overseers of the Taylor makeover jumps in.
“I said I’ll pay for that. I want you to look a million dollars. It’s Golovkin style but with bling,” he says. “She wanted a pair of black shorts.”
Taylor looks to her side blankly, not impressed by how the discussion has somehow turned to her shorts. She is still her own woman.
“Yeah, that’s my favourite thing,” she adds. “Black shorts. I just like plain. I don’t like anything fancy.”
Boxing Luddites
No chance of that. The fight before between Ronnie Clarke and Martin Ward for the British super featherweight championship ended with a bottle of water hitting the ring from the gods triggering a security response.
Lavishly tattooed “Ronnie” with the sides of his head shaved and his hair on top in red braids didn’t get the result over ‘Wardy’ that his fans wanted. Late night professional boxing.
A pioneer of reserve, Taylor knew that aspect of her nature needed to be parked before entering the ring. Hearn demanded entertainment, something to catch the eye. He wanted conversion therapy from Katie for the flat worlders, the boxing Luddites.
She ensured they would see her repertoire over the first two rounds of the scheduled six and for 58 seconds of the third. The third was when Kopinska turned from thinking this is going to be a long night to the plug hole has been pulled and I am swirling.
For two minutes of Taylor’s left jabs, moving forward and off loading combinations, the Polish 27-year-old puffed and retreated, her face reddening with each exchange.
Taylor kept her poise but the hunger was there to carve her name in London. Her speed and her stalking of Kopinska set the shape of the bout, the five times amateur world champion marching forward, reducing the ring and finding early rhythm.
Kopinska came out with big right hands in the second round but they were speculative and desperate swings and they left her open for Taylor to counter.
The third round assault came maybe a little quicker than the 3,000 crowd expected. As Kopinska retreated once again, she found herself locked in the corner. Instinctively Taylor immersed herself in the painful but swift endgame that separates professional boxing from amateur, the finish off.
Defence collapsed
Taylor attacked every opening as her opponent’s defence collapsed under the sustained pressure. It is rarely like this in amateur boxing, where the bigger gloves and head protection, can occasionally save lost causes.
When the referee stepped in, Kopinska was hunkered down hopelessly trying to protect herself and clearly distressed. It was absolutely the correct call.
“If I can get it to bed early, all the better,” said Taylor.
“There was an awful lot of pressure this week coming into the fight. I had to be a bit more aggressive.
“I definitely think I can do six rounds at very high pace. I was doing eight and ten rounds in the states. Three-minute rounds with 30 seconds rest sometimes.
“So the two minute rounds actually flew by for me there tonight. I tried to soak in the atmosphere as I was walking towards the ring. Brian [Peters] was telling me to take my time.
“I enjoyed the challenge. People’s perception of boxing will change over these next few fights. It’s all about breaking down these boundaries. This is only the start of it.”
On speed, balance, power and poise it’s hard to disagree. Although she is fighting lesser opposition than in Rio or the amateur World Championships in Astana, she brought an aura to the ring that had been missing. But this is the way it must now be done from here on. Destroying whatever is put in front of her.
